


Communication is Key

by AssistedRealityInterface



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Canon Bisexual Character, Coming Out, F/F, Fluff, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 14:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13813320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssistedRealityInterface/pseuds/AssistedRealityInterface
Summary: Ava and Sara’s first date goes well. Mostly. If only Ava could work up the courage to tell Sara the truth.





	Communication is Key

**Author's Note:**

> This is just The Date from the newest episode, but Ava is trans like Trans Jesus intended, and she comes out to Sara, and all is safe and well and full of love. To be honest, I needed to write this fic for myself, and to see it. I hope that I can make someone else feel satisfied by putting it out there.

Ava digs her knife into her chicken and grits her teeth against the familiar drumbeat of panic making her hands shake from the weight of the inevitability looming on the horizon.

The date had gone on for one hour and fifteen minutes. The first date she’d gone on, the girl had thrown her drink down in disgust and left without another word forty-six minutes in. Second date, she’d waited until the third date, approximately six hours of their time spent together, and was treated to a loud public lecture about how awful it was to lead people on and deceive them. The next drink was in her face.

There was no third date.

Until this one. This one, which had lasted longer than the first, and she’s so scared thinking about the second, so scared to not say anything, but fucking catatonic with fear at the thought of opening her mouth and telling Sara the truth.

You have to do it, her mind chides her. She pictures the voice like a stern but kind older woman in her head, crossing her arms over her chest. You can do this, Ava. You have to do this.

No I don’t. It’s my body. She doesn’t have to be told until we—you know, in bed? And we won’t do that. Maybe we’ll never do that. Ever.

That’s a fucking lie. Sara’s giving her a little smile now and all she can think of is sucking on her lips and kissing the laughter out of her mouth before setting her sights lower. She’s not even sure she’ll be able to make it to dessert before begging Sara to just throw her on the table and be done with it. 

But that’s just it. Well, part of it. Public sex is probably a no go on the first date. Ava wrinkles her nose at the thought and smiles, sipping her martini, trying not to think of the sting in the back of her throat that the alcohol isn’t soothing.

“Aves? Yo,” Sara says, waggling her fingers in front of her face, casting a love spell with her little gestures. “I’ve told you a buncha stuff. Now you gotta tell me something, baby girl.”

Baby girl, she repeats to herself, and her heart hurts. Ava swallows around her next sip of liquor, her mouth dry.

“No one’s,” she shudders, “ever. Called me that before.”

“Aw, what? I think it’s cute. Soft and little,” Sara says, reaching over and patting her hand, rubbing her worn, callused fingers over Ava’s skin. “You too tall to get people thinking you’re soft, Aves?”

“What? I,” Ava blinks, hard. “It’s. I. Baby girl?”

“Baby girl,” Sara repeats. “Hey. Task at hand. Story time? I’m super curious. And you got to look at my file and find out all my junk, but I don’t know anything about yours.”

Her tone of phrase makes Ava gag back rising panic, stuffing it down past her guts, hanging somewhere between her legs in a dark, shameful crevice. She hurts. Her chest hurts, her eyes hurt, the candles on the table are burning too hot for her to breathe and she can’t move but she has to  _ run— _

“I,” Ava says. “I liked to play. Video games. As a kid? I, um. Wasn’t good at racing games. Played Pokemon. I liked—I liked how you could make them get stronger and change, I thought that was cool, uh—”

She rubs her face. “I’m so sorry, I just feel sick to my stomach, I should—”

“Is it the food? Oh, god, Aves, we can just get the check and head back to the ship, it’s totally fine, you should lay down,” Sara insists, grabbing gently at her hands. “Don’t worry about it, baby girl. Let’s nip this in the bud now so you feel better for fun stuff later, hey?”

Sara’s looking at her, and the rest of the room is just an arc of suffocation smothering her with panic, but her eyes, her smile, that’s all she has to hold onto, so Ava stares at her bright white teeth and plump pink lips as she says, “We can’t. Do that. I mean. I should tell you first, I—I’m trans, Sara.”

Sara pauses. Cocks her head, furrows her brow, but her drink is empty, Ava notes with hazy headed glee, and she’s gotten better at anticipating an angry blow from a potential partner, it’s always hidden in the back of her head, haunting, hyper vigilant—

“Oh,” Sara says. “Hey, listen, I—”

She didn’t ask Gary to dive into the restaurant like a wounded hawk, but Ava knows an out when she sees one.

“We’ll talk in a minute, I just—that was a lot, the bathroom, I need—”

“Okay, yeah! Go, go—”

Sara watches Ava bolt, her stomach turning in concern, before she looks back at the window and watches the flash of the Waverider fall to Earth. Her stomach turns over once more and plummets down.

“Fuck,” she sighs, rubbing the side of her face, and grabs her jacket.

When Ava comes back, Sara is gone.

“Hey,” Gary pipes up from near her shoulder. “This one didn’t give you a hard time, right? About the, you know—”

“I know you’re trying to help, I appreciate it, but I’m in hell right now, so if you could just shut up and get me on that fucking ship, I’d appreciate it.”

“Right,” Gary agrees, nodding quickly and pushing his glasses up before they both book it out of the restaurant.

…

She’s not mad. She’s not. Maybe she deserves this. Maybe it’s her fault for being like this. It shouldn’t hurt, it doesn’t, it’s not—not anything she can control. It’s always there, though, it’s a part of her, it has to come out sometime, but—she’s so tired. She’s so tired of thinking about it as the background radio noise in every romantic interaction she even considers having. Why does all the love she feels perch on the knife point of that fucking answer?

Ava opens her mouth to tell Sara she’s not mad, and says, “I cannot fucking believe you did that to me.”

Okay. Not a great start.

“Jesus, Ava, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you at the restaurant, the team was just—fuck, I don’t know, whatever it is we do? I had to come fix this, it wasn’t my choice—”

“You  _ left me,” _ Ava says, because Sara’s words haven’t sunk in. “I just told you this big, crazy, bad thing, and you just got up and left—”

“Huh? Hey, you went to go talk to Gary, I saw you, don’t try to pin the standup on me, baby girl, this isn’t just  _ my bit—” _

Ava stops. Her ears finally catch her brain up on what Sara’s actually been saying over the static of the panic in her guts and heart. “You called me baby girl again.”

“Yeah? Oh, uh—yeah. Hey. Bad thing? Can we go back to that? I don’t—what bad thing?” 

“Don’t make me say it again,” Ava begs. “Please. I get so scared, Sara. How are you not scared? I feel like my insides are rotting.”

“Because of me?” Sara looks down, pursing her lips. “Aves. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to push you.”

“No! No, no, no,” Ava shakes her head and grabs at her hair, yanking it out of the bun she’d secluded it in, letting it fall trembling around her shaking shoulders. “You didn’t. You’re not bad. It’s me, Sara, it’s always me, I lie to people and I scare them and I never know how to say it or when and no one believes me or they do and they hate me and I don’t know how to explain and I get so overwhelmed I play all these things out in my head and—”

“It’s because of this stupid fucking ship, isn’t it? God dammit, I knew it, I’m  _ sorry,” _ Sara gasps, her chest lurching, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know I can’t be normal, okay? I’m trying  _ really hard, _ I swear, I wanted to do that for you, you were worth it—”

“Wait, what?” Ava blinks, taking a deep breath and holding her hands up. “Okay, okay stop. Wait. Dammit. We’re talking against each other right now, let me—I mean—Sara? I don’t? Want? You to be normal. I don’t want that. From you.”

“But I’m so bad,” Sara insists, rubbing at her eyes. “I can’t keep a girl around. I’m just sloppy and messy and bad. I don’t know how you thought I was cool, I really don’t.”

“What? No, no,” Ava grabs Sara’s hands. “Hey. I’m holding onto these so I don’t run off this ship and into the ocean in a desperate panic. Don’t let go of me, okay?”

Sara’s only response is to grip her hands tighter, and she leaves her fingerprints on Ava’s soul as her knuckles flex white over the skin. Ava takes a deep, shuddering breath, and blinks back tears before beaming. 

“Okay, so I’m trans,” she says. “Which I’ve only told a few girls I dated, and it went really badly, so I got scared. I never know how to tell people when it’s like. Serious romantic stuff. I don’t want it to change how you feel about me. I get so wound up and I think of all these things that could go wrong, I think about—I think about dying. Or getting hurt. Or being disgusting, and bad, and wrong. And. I told you anyway. Because all of that is still in my head, but so are you, and you’re—you’re bigger than all of it.”

Sara blinks. Her eyes are wet, and red, and her teeth gleam when her bright lips part like rose petals to show them off for Ava. “Agent Sharpe, are you calling me fat?”

Ava laughs helplessly until Sara kisses it out of her, holding her close by her hair and breathing love into her, the warmth of her breath and body and tongue pushing against and away all the sick, twisting panic in Ava’s guts, banishing it back to some deep corner of her brain, scraping helplessly at the last few dark places Sara hadn’t set alight inside her. 

“You can be fat,” Ava says when they break the kiss. “I mean. It wouldn’t make you any less pretty, weirdo.”

“Well, yeah, but I wanted to see if I could make you laugh,” Sara says. “You’re all so wound up, Aves. I’m sorry. I know why. I mean, I get why. I don’t blame you. I’m just glad you trusted me. It’s more trust than just coming out, I get it.”

Ava’s heart aches, tender and bruised as a freshly hatched bird. She lets Sara cup it in her hands, running her hands over Ava’s chest, squeezing her breasts and making Ava crack a grin before she buries her face into Ava’s neck. 

“You’re okay,” Sara promises. “More than okay. I don’t have a good response that doesn’t sound like, weirdly patronizing, but I want you to know all that I feel right now is just really happy you told me. I’m so glad I’m a person you can tell. And I know what it took. So like. I still totally want to bang, if you were worried about that.”

Ava snorts. “I mean, I was, yeah. But I feel like we have other things to worry about right now? Something about the Bermuda triangle on fire?”

“I hate this fucking team,” Sara grouses. 

“I know, but they need you,” Ava says, leaning in and kissing her forehead, a little thrill going up her spine at the ease with which Sara leans into her touch. “Besides, I don’t mind waiting a little bit to get my hands on you. You’re worth my patience, Sara.”

“You don’t think I’m a slut?” Sara mumbles. “Sorry for asking, I just, like, y’know, I get nervous when it’s serious. I’m really not cool, baby girl, I don’t know where you got the idea.”

“I think you’re fucking gorgeous, and I think you don’t need to justify yourself to me,” Ava says. “It doesn’t matter, ‘cause I was gonna ask if you had a spare room on the ship, actually.”

“No,” Sara says, and Ava deflates just slightly. “Don’t need it, yeah? I got a king size bed in mine. We’ll make this work.”

Ava’s heart kindles with relief, love, and hope, a glowing flame of warmth that makes her cheeks flush and her eyes gleam as she leans in for another kiss. “That right? I look forward to seeing your cunning plan through, Captain.”

 


End file.
